Anakin Skywalker - Blog Posts
someone pleeeeease make this film
I had a dream in which there was technology in the world that allowed anyone to create a film according to their desire. And I wanted a film where they would be happy.
tcw (2008) Anakin is actually the worst characterization of Anakin ever and actively does harm to the prequels and his arc but I don’t think yall are ready for that conversation
first off, no hate to this person or any of the people agreeing - at the end of the day, people have different thoughts/interpretations of star wars and its characters, so it's no big deal. but i just wanted to talk about this post/sentiment because i've seen it a lot in the fandom and i'm still new to SW. disclaimer that i'm actively watching TCW at the moment, so take my opinion with a grain of salt
i know most everyone is going to disagree with me on this, but to be kind of blunt, i feel like people like to be purposefully obtuse when it comes to anakin's characterization and it often seems to come from this place of trying to come off like an intellectual ('well *EYE* knew anakin was toxic/evil/a piece of shit the whole time ☝️🤓 ' type energy). i have various thoughts on this and i'm gonna start with the more nitpicky ones and then finish with what i think is the real reason we all disagree
for starters (again, this is just nitpicking) jedi do kill people and it's reasonable to think anakin has killed people prior to the tusken raiders just by nature of his position as a jedi (aggressive negotiations, etc etc). what makes it 'okay' is jedi, by nature of their beliefs, don't commit war crimes by killing the defenseless or innocents. but my point is that killing is already something he's likely done, whereas being a macho toxic fuckboy to his wife is not.
i guess your opinion on this next part of it varies depending on your thoughts when it comes to human nature/morals/whatever, but to ME at least, slaughtering a village because they enslaved and tortured his mother to death is definitely fucked up (because he also took out the innocents), but it's not the exact same thing as being abusive to his wife? like i'm not even trying to debate which one is worse either atp, i'm just saying both things are different and have different pathways of thinking to get to that point. with the tusken raiders, you can clearly see how anakin got there, even if it was wrong, fucked up and arguably evil when it came to the defenseless people he didn't know.
but putting those points aside, i think the main thing we're disagreeing on with the whole TCW characterization vs prequels characterization of anakin is the when of it all. like for ME (you're free to disagree), anakin's behavior of actively hurting padmé when he force choked her in ROTS was SUPPOSED to be 'out of character', and because of that it signaled that he was an evil sith lord that's now too far gone. that was the marker, right behind him killing the younglings. which people also do talk about when they're arguing about this topic:
the difference in thought i'm having from this person is from MY personal perspective, from a story-telling technique/standpoint alone, i just don't like the idea of putting toxicity towards padmé before that marker (what he did in ROTS). it fucks with the whole classic myth type tragedy of it? anidala is supposed to be somewhat idealized even if something like that shouldn't be irl. that's why luke 'redeems' darth vader and brings him back through a mirror of padmé's love for him. we're supposed to recognize vader is a villain, yes, but we're also supposed to take from the story that padmé's love for him was worth it in the end. and that the circumstances of that situation in ROTS (and leading up to ROTS) created the perfect storm to cause anakin to 'fall' and become a sith lord. the tragedy of it is that he WOULD have kept being a good person, without that perfect storm of circumstances (grooming from palpatine, feelings of isolation from parental figures, being heralded as this chosen one, his own arrogance/passion, trauma from how his mother died, force visions plaguing him that he KNEW would come true like with the one of shmi's death, etc).
for ME, as a story, i like that anakin's push into evil is signified by the force choke. the youngling slaughter is definitely like "well, he's gone now", yeah, but when we see him choking the person he was fighting to save? a character we've been personally watching love him the entire movie? that's when we know anakin is lost. so to try and be like 'well, he was just like this all along' undermines that tragedy of this scene that i just talked about. that's why a lot of people don't like some of TCW anakin's characterization. because it undermines that over-arching story. is the prequels-trilogy darth vader story unrealistic to real life? yes, completely. but that star wars story is not supposed to mirror real life. in real life you would not tell luke skywalker to try and save a man who genocided people, destroyed a planet and upheld a dictatorship for one of the most evil men to ever exist. but you have to suspend some of your disbelief in order to enjoy the story. it's just art. and sure, it's 'valid' if you want to accept anakin's TCW version along with some of those scenes people critique. you're free to think he was just toxic and bad all along, but i just think that's a shame and i disagree personally because i don't like what it does with the flow of the story or the work of art that's both trilogies overall. something i think encapsulates it well is this quote written by matthew stover in the ROTS novelization:
"The dark is generous and it is patient and it always wins – but in the heart of its strength lies its weakness: one lone candle is enough to hold it back. Love is more than a candle. Love can ignite the stars.”
in this situation, the candle was anakin and padmé's love for each other, persisting in their son. and the message wasn't that anakin was toxic and evil all along? it was that their love persisted and it came back in the end because it couldn't be blotted out by evil or death.
you could even delve into the force choke scene deeper? it's really the perfect example of 'a storm of bad circumstances' that make it a tragedy. because no, there's NO excuse for what anakin did and at this point he has slaughtered actual children. him hurting padmé is 'evil'. however, (and i know nuance goes to die on the internet, which is part of why i'm writing this lmfao) from anakin's perspective, padmé had just brought obi-wan to kill him. it's not a justification but it does establish the length padmé had to go to (we as the viewer know she didn’t go to that point, but anakin does not know this) in order for anakin to be 'evil' and toxic with her. he had to think that padmé was actively trying to kill him in order to force choke her. and even AFTER he was burned alive and lost his limbs to obi-wan (someone he saw as a father figure), the first thing he thought when he came to was if padmé was alright. he still loved her. and at this point he still thought she wanted him dead and hated him. it took him thinking padmé wanted him dead and hated him for him to snap enough to force choke her?
so with that in mind, yeah, people are going to view anakin's characterization in regards to her in a specific way. some people prefer that that was his breaking point into evil towards her, because of the story it's attempting to tell with the original movies. and him being this macho man towards her over things smaller than that just doesn't feel organic to what we saw in the prequels and it doesn't seem consistent with the flow of that over-romanticized story being told.
people are free to disagree or not like that over-romanticized story (in fact many people don't? and that's one of the reasons why some people don't mesh with star wars or anidala) but i'm not sure why they're surprised some people don't like that clash of characterization between prequels anakin and TCW anakin. this gets even more complicated when you factor in how people didn't like how anakin was overly romantic and 'simp'-like and even hayden had backlash for his acting and just his existence in the role. so of course when making a cartoon for kids, that younger boys would probably be watching, they would distance themselves a bit from that romance vibe and make it more 'obvious' he's just darth vader
Just wanna say that If Anakin only loved the “idea” of Padmé, his “vision” of her would’ve been shattered when he found out she was secretly conspiring behind his back against Palps, while keeping it a secret from him in the ROTS novel. But he quite literally says this instead:
Anakin doesn’t care what Padmé does even if it goes against what he believes in or if *hypothetically* that shatters the image of her, which it doesn’t btw, because we see she’s still his precious wife. And that’s because he doesn’t love the idea of her. He only loves her for her. Just like Padmé, he accepts all of her even when he doesn’t agree with her.
Another perfect example is how Anakin even as Vader, still continues to love Padmé after he thought she was teaming up with Obi Wan to have him killed. Literally the first thing he asks is “where is Padmé? Is she safe? Is she alright?” (while still believing, she betrayed him.) that’s called unconditional love. And when he’s told that he was the one who “killed her”, his immediate thoughts are:
“this burns hotter than the lava had.” Again, all while thinking she had betrayed him.
What always strikes me like a punch to the gut, is how happy and in love Anakin looks in this picture.
We all know he loves Padme and to what extents he was willing to go to keep her (Exhibit A: Joining the dark side) but the happiness and love for Padme in his expression when she tells him they're going to be parents is another level.
It just strikes me how truly Anakin, a slave boy who had to watch his mother suffer since childhood, then leave her and see her again when she's dying, leaving with Qui-Gon, only to lose him immediately and then be treated like a misfit with the Jedi, who have told him again and again how attachments are forbidden; how he craves for a family.
His family. Which he can protect and love and cherish. Where he would belong. The happiness he felt at that moment.
That's why he was so afraid to lose something so close to his heart, why he was willing to give up his beliefs and all that he had worked for in his life. Because he wanted that family he had always missed. That's what makes his fall to the dark side even more tragic 💔.
It’s always hotter in hell.
Why are the bad guys always so damn hot?!
Much like Darth Vader, I too have an unhealthy obsession with Obi-Wan Kenobi. I mean have you seen him
Wanna see a waterfall? (I got nominated for the ice bucket challenge. @aaa-batteryy be honest how excited are you to dump the water)
Anakin: Do you want to see a butterfly Ahsoka: Yes Obi wan: No! Anakin: *throws the butter across the table* Ahsoka: Fucking majestic
I HATE NESS AND CORRIN MAINS SO MUCH
they r playing smash bros
rip anakin skywalker you would've loved being the annoying ness main who does nothing but spam pk fire over and over and rip ahsoka tano you would've loved being the one who never settles on a specific character purely because you like to jack with your opponent (she's a fan of corrin's side b swipe)
I am so sorry to my moots for going down this hyperfixation
SITH! OBI-WAN & ANAKIN SKYWALKER | WHAT IF? STAR WARS BY ME. I always liked the idea of Obi-Wan corrupted by the dark side, so i made this. Star Wars really needs a what if show.
Spexcel??? Spoogle??? I love the star wars fandom so much.
Palpatine: My boy, I'm afraid to report that Master Kenobi is very likely sleeping with your wife.
Anakin, who knows for a fact that Obi-Wan is sleeping with his Commander, a good chunk of Ghost company, the Organas and Quinlan Vos: ...where is he finding the fucking time???
Palpatine, oblivious: Oh I've heard from some very reliable sources that-
Anakin: *pulls out a spexcel spreadsheet, the 3rd System Army's shared spoogle calender and a calculator*
Anakin: Your Excellency. That's just. not logistically possible.
I am sorry to anyone getting whiplash from the sudden swerve off the zelda fandom track but this is so well edited I can’t
mechanakin skywalker
he’s getting flashbacks
Stars Wars Fanon Overtime
So I was thinking a lot about how Star Wars fanon must have changed overtime right? like New Hope came out in the late 70s and Empire Strikes Back and Return of The Jedi in the early 80s. I can't help but wonder what people thought of these characters when the movies were first coming out. Like before Anakin and Vader were revealed to be the same person what did people think happened between Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Vader? What did people think happened during the Clone Wars. How did people think the empire came about.
And then when the Vader/Anakin twist did happen how did that change/impact the narrative people had come up with at the time. How did they reinterpret Anakin/Vader and Obi-Wan's relationship. What did they think the Jedi Order was like? What was the theories they held about how the force worked? After it was reveled that Leia and Luke were twins how did the story fans crafted within their communities change?
How did people think Anakin fell to the the dark side? What do they think were the triggers to the change? What was pre-prequel Anakin Skywalker like?
Padme's name or backstory isn't even revealed until the prequels! How did fans fill in the gaps? What were the names she was commonly given? What did they think she looked like? What was her personality like? How did they think she and Anakin fell in love? When did they think it happened? What were the common ways she died (if they thought she was dead)?
So I guess what I'm asking is if there are any old school Star Wars fans on this hellsite please tell me!
Disney listen to me this would bring in so much money like so much money you would literally be able to swim in it Scrooge McDuck style
disney is so weak for not making five minute comedic shorts about anakin and obi wan’s force ghost adventures while they had both ewan and hayden on the payroll
HOW DARE YOU! HOW DARE YOU DO THIS TO ME!
My tears ricochet is about Anakin and Obi-Wan. Exile is about Ahsoka and illicit affairs is about Anakin and Padme.
The Force, making the Skywalker family: whoops. Poured in too much Family BS™️
The Force: uhh
The Force: here I’ll make y’all a handler that’ll fix all my problems
The Force: *makes Obi-Wan Kenobi*
I'm watching obi wan kenobi with my dad, and he was talking about how the stakes are low because you know they all survive but then he said,"You know Darth Vader isn't going to find Obi Wan"
And I-
I feel like this is how the background characters view the main trio in tcw
Og pic
the command structure of the GAR suffers so badly from “we haven’t had a standing galactic army for 1000 years, we had to invent all of this yesterday” syndrome it is so fucking funny. the jedi high council had no idea what they were doing and were like, okay, the jedi are all generals now. what general do you answer to if two generals give you conflicting orders? the general. which of the generals is in charge? the general. which of the generals is the general over all the other generals? also the general. anakin is both the general of just the 501st and also the commander of gold squadron, apparently, how does he manage to be so annoying that he’s in a position of command in two separate branches of service? i cannot emphasize enough that the idea of rex explaining that their general is locked in a dogfight with separatist ships, so they have to hold off on such things as “orders” is just a thing that does not happen to people, ever. this makes absolutely no sense but given that the republic handed a military to the local superpowered wizard monk order that coordinates battles at most in small groups, i guess that’s kind of a fair way to take it. you win this round, rave baloney
Top 20 Funniest Things about Star Wars, in No Particular Order
1. Darth Maul repeatedly dying and then randomly turning up for absolutely no narrative reason, exclusively to ruin Obi-Wan’s day
2. Hondo Ohnaka in general
2.a. Bonus: Hondo and Maul competing to be Ezra’s Weird Crime Uncle
3. Dave Filoni being forced to spend 6 7 seasons doing narrative backflips to keep Anakin and Grievous from meeting, because of one throwaway line in ROTS about Grievous being short
4. The B1 Battle Droids in any given moment of the Clone Wars, but especially during the movie
e.g. those two droids on top of the cliff at Teth, arguing about seeing the approaching clone army and fighting over the binoculars, and one of them just fuckin FALLS of the cliff and the other one goes “get BACK HERE sergeant”
also e.g. Rex and like, one other guy, completely surrounded by droids and Rex is like “surrender! we have you outnumbered!” and one of the droids is like “hang on” and actually stARTS COUNTING
5. Grievous bailing hard the moment anything goes remotely wrong
6. Anakin stabbing a guy in cold blood as the Imperial March plays in the background and then looking all offended at Obi-Wan and going “WHAT? he was gonna blow up the ship!”
7. Dave Filoni’s incessant need to put wolves in Star Wars
8. the fact that the Mandalorian almost died and earned his clan signet on an errand to fetch brunch for a bunch of jawas
9. Rex’s plan on the Rishi Moon base: “ok so to get into the base currently occupied by droids, i’m going to hold a droid head up to the camera and do my best droid impression and ask them nicely to open the door” and it WORKED
bonus 9.a: that same episode, Cody’s reaction to Rex shooting one of their brothers (as far as he knew) right in the face was “HECK”
10. Kallus, to Ezra and Kanan: ok you have to knock me out so i don’t get caught as a spy. it has to be convincing.
Ezra: ok *uses the force to fucking YEET kallus through like three panes of glass*
Kanan: EZRA
Ezra: WHAT? that is convincing
Kanan: yeah, but i was gonna do it
11. Kylo Ren stalking into the war room and going “i sense… unease… about my appearance.” and all the generals rushing to compliment his new mask
12. those two stormtroopers in TFA walking around the corner, seeing Kylo Ren having a tantrum and beating up a console with his lightsaber, and just quietly backing away
13. Stormtrooper bonking his head in A New Hope
14. Rex bonking his head on a pipe
15. “It’s ok that we’re here.” “It’s ok that you’re here.” “It’s GREAT that you’re here.” “You’re relieved that we’re here.” “THANK GOODNESS you’re here” “Welcome, guys.”
16. the fact that Palpatine was is still so pissed off about Anakin slam-dunking him down the garbage chute at the end of Return of the Jedi that he had a giant pit built in his Secret Backup Fortress specifically so that he could throw Anakin’s grandson down it thirty years later like that level of PETTINESS
17. Darth Bane was voiced by MARK FUCKING HAMIL
18. Boba Fett dies by blind, confused Han Solo going “BOBA FETT?? WHERE????” and spinning around and accidentally backhanding him into the Sarlacc Pit (of course he’s not really dead shhhhhh fuck you disney)
19. those two scout troopers in episode 8 of the Mandalorian, having captured Baby Yoda and radioing in to try to tell Moff Gideon that they captured the asset like “is he available yet” “yeah, he just killed an officer for interrupting him, so it could be a while.” “ugh ok whatever. Standing by. Still.”
20. the fact that, from Obi-Wan’s point of view, ROTS is just fucking bonkers. Like, he and Anakin rescue the chancellor, everything’s going well, he tells Anakin he’s proud of him, and then he leaves to kill Grievous and just when he succeeds and the war is just about over, Cody tries to shoot him off a cliff and when he makes it back to Coruscant, Anakin is slaughtering a bunch of children and swearing allegiance to a Sith Lord and Obi-Wan has NO IDEA what the FUCK happened there
21. Twilight of the Apprentice from Darth Vader’s point of view: you chase down a bunch of Rebels to a secret Sith Planet. You go to the Temple. Surprise! Your old apprentice is there, along with some random jedi kid. She forces the kid to flee the collapsing temple, and then you proceed to have a big ol’ lightsaber fight but like THIRTY SECONDS LATER, a portal opens up in mid-air, the SAME KID but with a different haircut pops out, grabs your apprentice, and just fuckin vanishes. Poof. Gone. Like, that is just something that happened to Darth Vader one day and it’s just something he had to deal with.
22. JJ Abrams dedicating an entire scene in Rise of Skywalker to calling out Rian Johnson’s shitty Luke-related decisions from TLJ. Rey throwing away the lightsaber and ForceGhost!Luke catching it and going “wow hey maybe treat a Jedi’s weapon with a little more respect RIAN” and “hey Rey don’t do what I did and fuck off to the ass-end of nowhere for twenty years and refuse to do anything useful because that was really stupid and pointless and out of character of me, wasn’t it RIAN”
THE THING IS, OBI-WAN ISN’T WRONG ABOUT THIS. It’s Anakin’s inability to let go, that he’ll engage in reckless and foolhardy behavior to save someone he cares about, that will lead directly to his fall, his loyalty to those he cares about over the safety of the rest of the galaxy is exactly what leads to the death of the Jedi and the rise of the Empire. This is why I love TCW so much–in pretty much any other story I’ve seen, the high-risk-high-reward type of behavior from the hero ultimately always pays off, that minor set-backs are eventually overcome and we’re meant to think that it’s the right thing to do. In and of itself, maybe we even should think that about Anakin’s style–I mean, who doesn’t want to get R2 back?? I love R2! Of course we should risk everything for him! But TCW doesn’t exist in a vaccuum, we’re aware that we’re watching Future Darth Vader here and knowing that changes a whole lot about the context of Anakin being willing to risk the safety of everyone else for the one he wants to save. And Obi-Wan’s definitely not wrong to try to get him to see the danger that lies in that kind of thinking–usually, the one who tries to hold the hero back is wrong, ultimately risking everything for friendship saves the day!! And it will this time. But one day…. One day Darth Vader’s going to do the same and it’s going to fuck everything up.
The way he moves so slowly to start off, giving Ahsoka plenty of warning, is just so pure to me
Gif credi: @girldaddean
we’re out here assuming anakin’s first words to ahsoka after his dramatic “i didn’t expect to see you so soon” would be sad bittersweet sappy and all but he went on and called her “old” oh he’s such a big brother
This episode was sooo relatable in terms of growing up and realizing the bad things that happened to you as a child. Like, when you're a kid and in a bad situation, you don't really realize how bad it was until you get older and understand the world more and then it dawns on you like "oh, this is definitely not how it was supposed to be"
Young Ahsoka was so heartbreaking because, in these scenes, physically she looks like the age she was when she fought in the Clone Wars (13 or 14), but mentally she's like in her 50s and has all the memories and knowledge that her 50-year-old self has. Now, she looks back and realizes that she wasn't trained to fight in a war. The training younglings received was to be peacekeepers. Now, she sees Anakin's lightheartedness and joking nature and, rather than joining in like she once may have done, she's disgusted by it. Now, she sees the pointlessness of the war and how so many people died for nothing. We see a child with the wisdom and understanding of an adult. It pushes the audience to understand more of the tragedy of the Clone Wars and the trauma that Ahsoka carries from it. This was the guilt and anger and sadness she has been carrying for decades.
Seeing this perspective is quite heavy and depressing, but it makes the line "I choose to live" so much more impactful. You can heal from your past and step forward onto a new path and choose to keep living.
one of the funniest and most in character things ever is Ahsoka mentioning the whole Vader thing once and Anakin defensively going "is that what this is about" and rolling his eyes like "oh my god I went on ONE 20 year rampage and no one can let it go, I'm on my apology tour right now what more do you people want"
